A young girl sees her family murdered by a drug lord, then grows up to be an assassin simply so she can get revenge. Yes, it’s the O-Ren Ishii story from Kill Bill but it’s also the plot of Colombiana, which starsZoe Saldana (Avatar, Star Trek) as the assassin searching for vengeance as well as Michael Varitan. It’s co-written by Luc Besson (Leon: The Professional) and directed by Olivier Megaton (Transporter 3). Colombiana is scheduled for release September 2011 but some early looks of Saldana as her character Cataleya Restrepo are now online. Check them out after the jump.

The film centers on Cataleya Restrepo who at age 10 sees the brutal murder of her parents by a Colombian drug lord Don Luis. Cataleya manages to escape the bullets of the assassin and reach Chicago, where her uncle lives Emilio, also a gangster.

Emilio is doing its best to remove Cataleya from the criminal life, but she is determined to become a professional killer. At 25, Cataleya has become a real killer operating on behalf of his uncle, Emilio. But her sole desire is to find Don Luis to avenge the death of her parents.

I mean, come on. That’s almost exactly the O-Ren Ishii story from Kill Bill, right? The only big difference is that was set in Japan, and this is set in Columbia and the United States. Can you foresee anything in that description that might make the film different from how Tarantino told it? Does the fact that Besson wrote the script maybe hint at a more interesting romantic sub-plot that could help the film rise above? Or maybe photos of Saldana wielding that huge ass gun is enough to put asses in seats.